


About Orfea

by Soubrettina



Category: Pirates of the Caribbean (Movies)
Genre: F/M, Monologue, Parenthood, Resurrection, opera - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-03
Updated: 2014-08-03
Packaged: 2018-02-11 12:56:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,085
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2069028
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Soubrettina/pseuds/Soubrettina
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Eight years later; a recreation ground, in south-west England. A boy, a little girl and a baby playing, just within earshot. Elizabeth meets someone she thought she would never see again.</p><p>Written on a week where I'd read far too much misery being heaped on the poor old onetime-Commodore, and felt it was time to write him a happy ending for once, by whatever means remotely possible.</p>
            </blockquote>





	About Orfea

You know, Elizabeth, I…

No. Some things should stay in one’s own head. That is a part of what sanity is.

But then- you have a child yourself. Maybe you will understand.

I get terribly frightened, sometimes. I don’t know if you have ever stood on a precipice, like maybe the wall of Fort Charles back in Jamaica, and known that you could take but one step and come to such a terrible end? Or, well, you have been long enough at sea- if you ever saw a storm-wave scythe off a rail on which you had just been leaning, or bring a mast down where you had a moment ago been standing, and realised that had you lingered or stepped the other way by merest chance, you would have now been drowned or made a cripple?

I say Fort Charles in particular; you must realise, I used to think all the time, if only I had kept my eye on you, seen you becoming ill, said what I had to say faster or in more honest terms, then, well, no Jack Sparrow, none of those debacles with the _Interceptor_ , the Isla de Muerta, the _Dauntless_ , the whole sorry progression. We’d never have met Sparrow, and Turner- well, I sincerely doubt you’d have married him. Well, _quite_. No disgrace, no Bootstrap Bill, no death, you know, and so on and so on. Even after I came back- yes, even with Floria there. Are you surprised? Of course it was because I wished more for her than a room in an inn, or at my brother’s vicarage. That was what I told myself, too. But if I had not come by so much trouble, I would not have married an Italian foundling with a big voice and enough ambition to defy Davy Jones and impress Calypso, so the point was moot.

The point is, the point is this. That feeling of being saved by a whisker by merest chance? Well, I feel it, sometimes. It started after Julilia was born. Just sometimes, usually at night, when Floria is beside me and we have Julilia curled up between us. Suddenly it all goes through my head, I can see it, the sun on the water, the colour of how the sun caught your hair, the way you had your hat just so and your lashes turned down, the weight of that coat with all those brass buttons. I’m more aware of it than I was at the time, certainly of your buckling over against the wall and that the parapet won’t catch you when you fall. And I’m back there and I could so easily turn and wrap my arms around you and carry you indoors or to your father’s carriage so you may recover, and you would be so very dazed and vulnerable, just enough drama for an impressionable society girl of that age to fall in love. And Sparrow might go on his merry way and live out his escapades without ever drawing our attention, and Turner would, I don’t know, I doubt I’d care, and I’d become Admiral in good time and retire and…

And I’d be perfectly happy, and never marry Floria, and Julilia _would never have been born_. I mean, Floria would have been well enough because Floria always would. But I’d- I’d never have had her.

It’s… _terrifying_. Do you ever have that feeling when you’re almost asleep and then suddenly you feel as if you’re falling? It’s like stepping off a ship you thought was sound, and a second later it falling apart behind you and just _knowing_ that had you tarried you would have gone down too.

No I’m not saying that marrying you would have been a fate worse than death. Look, I did _die_ and I’m not saying that it was worth being stabbed through the belly to avoid marrying you. Must you make fun? And no, I’m not thanking you for putting me in the way of Bootstrap and his pike, or the rest of it. If I could have had Floria without it, that would have been even better. But of course, that was not to be.

I mean, you have seen _Julilia_. So… gifted. Really quite brilliant. And so beautiful. I know what you’re thinking, and you can keep it to yourself. I think you’ll find it’s not just in my eyes, I have it on perfectly good authority. You know, Floria probably never would have married if she hadn’t seen a way to get off the _Dutchman_ that way? And of course, she didn’t care, what’s a marriage of convenience to Floria? She had the love of her life, I never expected to be more than a convenience for her. She would have married any other Turner offered her. Only if it were not for the business with the _Black Pearl_ , Turner wouldn’t have been there to make the offer, and she would have had no such lenience from the real Jones. So we’re back where we were.

What do you mean, do I love her? What sort of a question is that? She’s my _wife_. Six years of marriage and two children, is that- yes, _two_ children. I’m sorry if to your mind a loving couple would have produced seven by now. I’m sure yourself and Turner might have bred a village if circumstances allowed; however, circumstances happen to other people too. Floria has her career. And I- well, you know about that. If it weren’t for her career and my wound we’d never have married in the first place. Even then Julilia and the new baby had to be born off-season.

It doesn’t trouble me in the slightest. I’m the one who has to mind them. If you had borne me ten children in Port Royal I would have had less work with them than I have had with my Julilia and little James. (Yes, it is James, of course it is. I know Floria and Julilia call him Jimmy. I started that to get Floria out of calling him ‘Giacomo’. No, it’s Italian for James. Yes, that’s why I prefer ‘Jam-mez’ rather than having it in her language. I couldn’t have stayed together long if I couldn’t stand this sort of highly amusing irony.) No, I’ve no interest in having ten. Not even if we kept a nurse. Maybe, a long time ago. It’s different, when you’re young. It’s just numbers. You don’t think you could be more happy with one than you ever thought you could be with a dozen.

Elizabeth? What… I didn’t mean-

What _are_ you doing?

Oh, for heaven’s sake, there’s no need for that. Of course I understand, what do you take me for? Oh, there, _there_. Yes, of course. No, I’m honoured. Of course you’re a sister to me. Elizabeth, we are in public. Anyone could see us; please let go. Better now? Good. Yes, Young William’s a fine boy (in spite of everything). Julilia likes him, too.

Don’t. I’m sure they don’t even know what that means. Well, Julilia doesn’t, anyway. For heaven’s sake, she’s four.

You know, the first time I saw Floria, I thought she was insane. Most of the dead accept it. She took down three of the crew with her elbows, bit the navigator, and kicked Bootstrap Bill off his legs. It’s one of those things that looks like an omen afterwards.

Then I thought she was a _principessa_ , or some such rank. It was only when her escort and his wife explained to us what she was that it all made sense. I’m afraid she swiftly made herself far more aristocratic than any lady I’ve ever seen. You realise those jewels she wears are glass? The real thing would never sparkle like that.

Then again, one doesn’t know what sort of woman might leave her child outside a convent in Florence. Has Julilia played for you yet? The little virginal, she practically taught herself. Plays with both hands, from memory of course; she doesn’t quite read music yet. Oh, letters, of course. She couldn’t wait, there was no stopping her. Oh, of course there’s talent, on Floria’s side. And Floria’s intelligent and works hard, of course. That’s the way that she’s chosen to be. Those are her virtues. Floria’s talent isn’t a virtue, it’s just one of those things like the colour of one’s eyes or the shape of the nose- there’s no choice there, no particular personal excellence. That’s quite separate. She’s a good woman in spite of the talent, not through it. She is merely everything else that she is from it, that is all.

The nuns who raised her, naturally they trained her to sing the Catholic chants, and realised that her voice was abnormal, huge. And beautiful. So they sent her away to a respectable man and his wife- an apprentice, I suppose. I met him, when they were all drowned in the Bay of Biscay- they were as possessed with her as any couple ever were with a daughter.

Yes, that was when she bit the navigator and kicked Bootstrap. I know you wouldn’t believe it now, but she had been engaged at Covent Garden and was furious that death should take it away. You must understand that, wouldn’t you, Elizabeth? Well, to Floria, who nobody had loved before they heard her sing, it was inconceivable that she would not live to fulfil that purpose.

Of course, with her education, she was first to come out with a bargain. You’ve heard of the boon of Orfeo- Orpheus, rather- the bard who performed for the gods Charon and Pluto and moved them to free his Eurydice from Hades? Well, she was only too eager.

I don’t know if Calypso has a taste for Gluck- I don’t know, sometimes the sea seems full of music, though I can’t imagine her being impressed by Floria’s technical merits. But I think Floria must have appealed to her. Maybe for the same reasons that you and Turner did. And as for Turner… well, you would know better than most how Turner would take to a suggestion like that. For my part I never thought he’d grow up to be such an indulgent fellow with a many’s a mystic loophole. As it were. Of course, for the same reason, there was a part of it that troubled him, and indeed the goddess went along with him- I don’t know whether she was suddenly worried about doing things properly, or whether she’s just keen to… well, you must have been wondering how all this related to me. Well, Turner was troubled, because it’s the sort of thing that would trouble Turner, about Floria trying to invoke Orfeo’s bargain, not out of love, but out of ambition. So it was agreed that she would take a husband that she might rescue, just in order that she may pass through. And as for the ‘no looking back’ part, we took the sensible precaution of blindfolding her from the wedding until we made land, which could have saved Orpheus a great deal of anguish.

Yes, me. Your _husband’s_ choice, not mine, though Floria was willing enough- I suppose I was better ready to be married than most, and she knew it. I don’t know if the goddess guided his hand. Or whether it was in thanks for my being there in the first place. Or some kind of revenge. He insisted that I was due another chance, and I had little say in it. And Floria went through with her part, and I mine.

What, Covent Garden? Oh, she played there, yes, for a year. She didn’t tell the management about me, until she grew too big with Julilia to cover it. So that was the end of the grand diva Picconetta after all; still, she found work in Bath, where they tolerated the next baby, as he was born in midsummer, when Society are all down in the country. And Julilia likes the gardens, and the countryside, and meets fine people who admire her very much, and doesn’t seem at all troubled if it’s not her Mama who puts her to bed.

What, are they coming back?

(Yes, probably just in time.)

Oh, yes, they- what is that on her apron? Has she been in a _tree_?

Well, really. It’s like minding-

Well… you.

Elizabeth, I forgive your father everything. Practically everything.

Never you mind exactly what. Just… practically everything, that’s all.


End file.
